Why do some people so passionately hate Rod Roddenberry?

He is the only son of Gene and Majel, the creator of Trek and the woman who has been in every incarnation of Trek in one way or another over the last 50 years. What he chooses to do with his name is up to him.

Whether carrying the Roddenberry name is a blessing or a curse, it's his to explore and deal with in whatever way suits him.

It looks as if the couple of people who posted such venom in another thread either have not visited this thread, or have not been willing to speak on behalf of their reasons for such hatred.

Speaking for myself I will confess that I was not certain what to make of Rod at first. But I enjoyed Trek Nation immensely and I enjoyed his honesty in that at first he not only did not "get" Trek but even kind of resented the place it took in his father's life. I appreciate that he seems to be making an honest effort to understand and respect both it and it's fans. I also appreciate that he is trying to understand his father as a human being with all his amazing vision, and flaws.

I also personally get the sense that he is trying to help grow the Trek "brand" in a way that keeps it relevant without demeaning its essence.

Ultimately I think he's somebody I'd enjoy meeting and having a conversation with.

*raises an eyebrow* I am curious about this tendency that some people have to make such statements in the course of a discussion.

Perhaps you would be so good as to enlighten me on a few points.

1: Since I at no time made a claim in this discussion as regards my open mindedness nor lack thereof what precisely is the genesis of your comment?

2: Since your comment does not seem to contribute anything of substance to the discussion and rather seems to be a thinly veiled personal attack I am wondering if the emoticon at the end is being used by you because you are marginally aware that your words appear hostile and rather then reconsider posting them you are trying to get out of having to deal with their potential repercussions? Or are you someone who believes that you can say anything you like without having to deal with recriminations so long as you post a winking emoticon after the text?

3: The comments I have read/heard in which Rod is called or implied to be, only interested in Star Trek for the money, a huckster etc seem to place the commenters squarely within the bounds of the colloquialism "hater". Said colloquialism denotes someone with a negative opinion of another person that has little to no basis in fact and is derived mostly from personal usually emotional reasons. Given that you were one of the chief persons making disparaging comments in another thread I am curious if you are objecting to the term hater because it is inaccurate? Or is it because you have no facts with which to respond and therefore are engaged in the time honored practice of nitpicking verbiage as a means of obfuscation?

Thank you in advance for your replies which I am quite certain will be as illuminating and important to this discussion as your prior comment was.

*raises an eyebrow* I am curious about this tendency that some people have to make such statements in the course of a discussion.

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I'm curious why you don't think that your initial statement was somewhat offensive. It sounds to me that you are referring to anyone who disagrees with you as small-minded, petty and jealous. Perhaps I misunderstand. I hope so.

I'm relatively new here so if this criticism is out-of-line for this site I apologise.

As regards to Rod Rodenberry I've never met him, don't know much about him personally and if he can make some money out of Star Trek I think good on him.
I don't know how people can 'hate' somebody if they don't really know them. They can hate what he represents I suppose.
But I don't because the more people who contribute to the Star Trek legend the better it is IMO

*raises an eyebrow* I am curious about this tendency that some people have to make such statements in the course of a discussion.

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I'm curious why you don't think that your initial statement was somewhat offensive. It sounds to me that you are referring to anyone who disagrees with you as small-minded, petty and jealous. Perhaps I misunderstand. I hope so.

I'm relatively new here so if this criticism is out-of-line for this site I apologise.

As regards to Rod Rodenberry I've never met him, don't know much about him personally and if he can make some money out of Star Trek I think good on him.
I don't know how people can 'hate' somebody if they don't really know them. They can hate what he represents I suppose.

But I don't because the more people who contribute to the Star Trek legend the better it is IMO

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I am going to assume that you are referring to what was actually my second post in this thread rather than my first which was the genesis of the thread itself.

And as you have posted an actual contribution instead of a snide aside I'm perfectly happy to reply.

I have no problem at all with people with opinions differing from mine. In fact one of the reasons why I did not post again in this thread after my initial post was because I wanted to hear people's opinions without deforming them with my own.

However some of the snideness and vitriol that I have come across as regards Rod does not sound like opinion and a great deal more like gleeful character assassination.

One of the best comments in this thread was the person who said that when Rod was onstage at a con talking about projects/products he was involved with/pushing that he came off a bit like a shill. That was a good comment because it was intelligent, and was about behavior instead of simply mindlessly slagging him off or making snide comments about how he must only be in it for the money.

If the person to whom I replied had offered an actual comment disagreeing with me I would have had no problem with what was written. But instead there was an attempt to dismiss what I said with a thinly veiled pseudo critical attack and then to pretend that it was not meant to be offensive by "buying it back" with an emoticon.

Ultimately I stand by my assessment. If you are going to call a person horrible names and impugn their character and then offer no evidence whatsoever to support your assertions then to me you fall into the category of hater and most haters hate because of something being lacking within themselves that they are unwilling or unable to address, and the most common lacks include small mindedness, pettiness and jealousy.

I will say that I think your statement is quite accurate that they don't actually hate Rod Roddennberry but rather what he represents to them. Which makes it all the more sad to me.

Finally in the spirit of openness and honesty I will say that the smaller emotional part of myself is screamingly jealous. I mean here's a college dropout who kind of fell assbackward into a life where he pretty much gets to do anything that interests him instead of being stuck in a hamster wheel job with negative meaning like the majority of us.

However I like to think that I'm mature enough to look at this person objectively and not let such feelings hijack my opinions.

*raises an eyebrow* I am curious about this tendency that some people have to make such statements in the course of a discussion.

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The term "hater" generally raises eyebrows in and of itself because, particularly in recent years, it has been used rather generously by many who wish to invoke a visceral negative emotional response against someone with an alternative point of view. It is used with great zeal by many on all sides of the political spectrum as a tool of vilification to discredit someone with opinion rather than fact. So, when the word "hater" is used, it is not generally within the boundaries of rational discussion or debate.

To answer your question in the OP, I don't dislike Rod at all. He does come off a bit whiny at times, but that's just me. As others have said, it's his legacy, and he is free to explore it as he sees fit. If he makes some bucks off it on the side, good on him. IIRC, he was instrumental in building http://www.roddenberry.com/ (along with Majel, perhaps?) MANY years before "Trek Nation", specializing in scripts and fairly high-quality props. Interestingly, I believe he fell prey to the Paramount legal team on the sale of unauthorized props, as many other fan efforts have in the past 2 decades, and was was forced to become "officially licensed", meaning he had to give Paramount their vig. At least, that's how I remember it. I get the impression that he embraced Trek and made it a part of his life for a lot longer than just these recent interviews.

While I don't really have a strong position on the man, at one point in Trek Nation (iirc) he said something to the effect that the fact that his father regularly cheated on his mother made him respect his father more.

I remember that - I think what he meant by that statement was that by doing the cheating somehow made Gene more human and fallible to Rod. That made Rod appreciate him more somehow as not being this distant, larger-than-life and mysterious authority figure, although I can't remember what his exact words were...

But you're right, it did seem to come out a little sideways in the interview.

While I don't really have a strong position on the man, at one point in Trek Nation (iirc) he said something to the effect that the fact that his father regularly cheated on his mother made him respect his father more.

I think the other reason I never "hated" Rod Roddenberry, is that I never fully drank his daddy's koolaide. Yes, I truly enjoy the show. Yes, I have all the episodes on DVD (except Voyager ). Yes, I've made my own uniforms and gone to cons when I was younger (I refuse to call it cosplay!) But I'm also far too jaded and cynical to believe that Gene's vision of humanity in the future is nothing more than a pleasant fiction. I have never lived and breathed by his utopian vision and, therefore, not insulted when people take shots at the man and --GASP-- tell stories of a fallible human being who had his ups and downs, just like everyone else.

I love all things Battlestar Galactica and I feel the same way about Glen Larson. Yeah, he created what is probably my all-time favorite TV show, but so what? He's just this guy, y'know? He's not God, and neither is Gene with his "Great Bird of the Galaxy" moniker...

So, to get somewhat philosophical, we now seem to be in an era of extreme deconstructionism, tearing down the heroes of old to see if they were something other than these magnificently lionized superhuman creatures in idealized paintings, music and poetry - which, of course, they were. Recent revelations about the early history of the US is a topical case in point (its "discovery" by Columbus, the Founding Fathers, the legend of the Ride of Paul Revere, etc). This attitude clearly extends into the world of pop culture, probably through the perverse fascination of "Reality TV" to see how "real" people live their lives (despite the fact that there is little that has anything to do with reality in such offerings). It's really almost quite voyeuristic, if you think about it. Social media probably plays a key role in this phenomenon as well, in a world where people are tweeting their daily bowel movements.

I think the other reason I never "hated" Rod Roddenberry, is that I never fully drank his daddy's koolaide. Yes, I truly enjoy the show. Yes, I have all the episodes on DVD (except Voyager ). Yes, I've made my own uniforms and gone to cons when I was younger (I refuse to call it cosplay!) But I'm also far too jaded and cynical to believe that Gene's vision of humanity in the future is nothing more than a pleasant fiction. I have never lived and breathed by his utopian vision and, therefore, not insulted when people take shots at the man and --GASP-- tell stories of a fallible human being who had his ups and downs, just like everyone else.

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It's interesting how two people can come from very different viewpoints and arrive at the same place.

While I don't consider myself a "kool-aid" drinker (although I know exactly the kind of person you are speaking of) I do indeed live and breathe the vision of Star Trek (which I don't view as a true utopia but that's a discussion for another thread). However I have never felt upset by revelations of the true nature of Gene Roddennberry or anyone else involved in Trek, in fact the opposite I seek out such tales because to me the glorious future posited by Trek is all the more amazing for coming from fragile, fallible, fucked up human beings. That we can have greed, and licentiousness, and rage in our hearts and still dream of a day when we have grown past being so easily warped by such things is part of why I love Trek and why I cling to it as one of the few rational myths in existence.

Ultimately I think when it comes to Gene, Bloom County may have said it best...

I watched Trek Nation and didn't get the best vibe from the guy. Nothing terrible...but it does seem as though he is trying to now make money off of what his father has built. Which is not unique. People do that. Also keep in mind that he WAS a child/teen while Gene was working on Star Trek. He could not have possibly understood at that time, the magnitude. Also if a parent isn't around much and everyone is constantly talking about their work, of course you might grow to resent it.

I think people have a bigger problem with the fact that he is attempting to make money off of the franchise AFTER the fact.

^^^ and I've heard that his attempt is a result of having grown up, changed, and sincerely wanting to re-discover his father's legacy and all that...

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Does he need to make a documentary in order to do that?

I don't have any feelings about the guy. He had nothing to do with Star Trek, and I've never watched his movie because I'm not interested in watching someone's therapy.

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That's true. He could have reconciled or re-discovered or whatever he did with his father's legacy unto himself. In fact, it probably should have been a personal and private matter. Isn't that what most of us would do anyway?

Picard out and out hates the Borg. He knew from his own experiences that once assimilated a drone could be rescued and "de-assimilated," inspite of that he still killed the Enterprise crewman on the floor being assimilated. Picard in his own mind did him a favor.

Picard out and out hates the Borg. He knew from his own experiences that once assimilated a drone could be rescued and "de-assimilated," inspite of that he still killed the Enterprise crewman on the floor being assimilated. Picard in his own mind did him a favor.

Leave no man behind (unless they're being assimilated).

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When was there time to rescue and deassimilate that crewmember, or any other for that matter? I must have missed that part.